Using a rotary phone & dial-up modem with Verizon FiOS

[@Clell65619]

Good lord. You've been uploading your videos at that speed? You have the patience of a saint. Pulse dialing? Oh my god.

[@megabojan1993]

He has Pulse dialing because he refuses to pay 50 cents to the telephone company for tone dialing. He said that in one of his previous videos.

[@lemagreengreen]

I think I'd refuse to pay that that on principle alone - greedy phone company! Wasn't aware they were still treating touch tone dialling as some sort of luxury! I know that just isn't an option here.

[@vwestlife]

I let my videos upload overnight while I was sleeping, so it was never an issue for me.

[@slashtiger1]

I was amazed to hear that there even _is_ an excess to be paid for Touch Tone Dialling... I mean... Pulse Dialling was succeeded by Touch Tone Dialling in the early 90s here in the Netherlands, and by 1994 it was the de-facto standard. It has actually been the other way around for us where excess fees were concerned; you had to pay more to keep Pulse Dialling from about 1993. What with all major companies having implemented touch-tone operated interfaces... There was no real place for rotary phones ever since then, unless you virtually never dialled into a company's customer service department...

[@junker15]

I remember having to use pulse when I lived in Germany in 1992. Telekom didn't even give me the option for touch-tone. The only thing I was missing was a phone with a rotary dial. (I miss Germany even though I only speak English. :o( ) These days, there's absolutely no excuse for central office equipment (old or new) to NOT support tone. Every CO has the precise tone plant required for it, and pretty much only Verizon, who probably still runs crossbar COs with digit receivers from the 1960s because they're too cheap to upgrade, would dare keep charging extra for it. Says a lot about Verizon, frankly.

[@JessHull]

I used to dislike that modem noise....now I miss it.

[@DarkGT]

It had being years since I hear old rotary phone ring, I almost jump to pick the phone that I don't have anymore.

[@BillAnt]

I've been using an ATA voip box with standard cable internet for the credit card machine dialup. It worked but wasn't very reliable, many times had to redial etc. Lately I bought an IP based CC machine so I got rid of the old voip box. By the way, the testing in this video is not the most accurate, because while you seem to be getting an almost equal speed to traditional landline, the LATENCY using FIOS is much greater due to the multi DAC/ADC conversions. fyi

[@reymicroc]

You should have kept that phone for the memories

[@alexsmith8765]

Can you keep the analog line and get fios?

[@coolelectronics1759]

Im getting one for my room! Hopefully it works with obi200 its got push buttons

[@genericgreensquid6669]

Finally a new dial-up sound! People in YT videos always use that same old one uploaded ages ago!

[@rasz]

you like dialup sounds? check out lui_gough "Project: THE DEFINITIVE COLLECTION of V.90/V.92 Modem Sounds" at goughlui.com/2016/05/03/project-the-definitive-collection-of-v-90v-92-modem-sounds/ he also has a V.34 sounds collection, and a FAX one :)

[@FairPlay137]

Generic Green Squid This is just V.92 with Quick Connect capabilities, compared to the popular V.90 sound we all know and love.

[@Trance88]

I can hear a pretty good difference in the sound quality between the digital and analog call quality. Analog sounds more pure, has a little more bottom end. The digital has a little bit more digital compression sound to it with more rolled off lows. High frequency response seems to be exactly the same for both. What I really find amazing is that Verizon still supports the use of basic rotary pulse dialing!! I figured that would go the way of the dinosaur once the newer digital systems were integrated. I still wonder how much longer they're going to have support for pulse dialing.

[@St0rmcrash]

Good gravy, I can't believe they were still charging the Tone surcharge in 2018. I'm frankly surprised it never got flipped to charging for pulse support. I'm glad but not surprised that it works like a regular land line since my understanding is that FiOS Digital Voice is digital but not VOIP, giving it better delivery priority than VOIP for modems/fax. It all makes sense though when you consider that what FiOS does is move the digitization point from the central office and into your home. Also nice that pulse is supported as most VOIPs don't.

[@MyDiesel101]

You come up with some of the most ingenious and unique projects. I really enjoy your channel. I have three vintage phones, and a fax machine (Which I lent to my Niece). - Gene

[@Clone42]

These sounds are so nostalgic for me. Thank you for capturing this, and in such high quality.

[@PropaneWP]

I remember using analogue modems back in the day as a kid. One interesting thing I learned was that the series of clicks you hear at 5:02 correspond to the number that is being dialed. 1 click means "1", 3 clicks means "3", ten clicks is a zero, etc. If you listen to the clicks you can hear that they correspond to the number being dialed on the screen. I figured out that these clicks can be replicated by quickly tapping the receiver hook, so I was able to call from locked phones because the lock only disabled the keys or the rotary disc. Good times. Also, the initialization of modems were a huge hassle. It was done via what was called an init string, and it would look something like this: Init=AT&FW2&C1&D3&K3&Q5%C1\N3S7=60S36=7S46=138S95=47S0=1&W Getting these strings right was a big mystery at the time, because where I lived it was hard to find any documentation and what documentation there was to be found was often wrong. Just trust me when I say that a lot of frustration and hair-tearing went into getting this right. If anyone's interested, here's an example of a command sheet for init strings. support.usr.com/support/3cxm756/3cxm756-ug/atcoms.htm These were not included in the user manual of my modems, I wish I had one of these back then.

[@EmperorTigerstar]

You know, VWestlife, I'd be interested to hear your take on the various browsers, especially since Firefox has recently made improvements that make it arguably better than Chrome. I also wonder how new browsers would handle on older computers / windows and mac systems. I'd love to see a video on the subject.

[@vwestlife]

I mostly use Firefox ESR and Pale Moon / New Moon.

[@qwertykeyboard5901]

your here?

[@Caseytify]

@@vwestlife I use Pale Moon 64 bit. What is New Moon?

[@Caseytify]

Older operating systems are severely constrained in which browsers they support. For example modern Chrome won't run under WinXP. Other modern browsers require instruction sets supported by later Intel processors. Basically you're stuck with older versions of browsers, if you can find them.

[@vwestlife]

A version of Pale Moon designed for Windows XP.

[@20035079]

i didn't imagine you as the type of person who had DSL though... glad you made a video on this before it went away though!

[@easylisteninglounge1000]

In my area DSL is the only type broadband available. I get 4.5mb download speed, and about 1mb upload.

[@CommodoreFan64]

I don't think he really had a lot of choice on what he could get for a land line ISP in his area, as he made a video about several years ago complaining about always having issues with Verizon. I'm in SC, and up till around mid 08 we could only get dial-up with no options thanks to Verizon's shitty service, Thankfully AtlanticBroadBand stepped in, and gave use Broadband access over copper cable lines, and now the only other option is Frontier communications DSL with the fastest speed they offer being 25/1 and calling it business class speeds. It truly is sad the state of our internet in this country that some places can't even get a 56K dailup connection without hassle, and I can vouch for that as when I go to see my g/f on her cattle/free range chicken farm over in GA she can't even get a phone line ran to her house, so she is stuck with Cricket Wireless 3/3 unlimited 2 plan on her phone, and using free WiFi when she goes into town on her Lenovo Chromebook to get anymore serious work done.

[@easylisteninglounge1000]

I live in central FL and couldn't get DSL till about five years ago.

[@zyborg47]

Myself and a lot of people here moan about relying on one company to maintain the communication system in the UK, well it is mainly one company, but I think we are better in a lot of way to the U.S. the amount of people i know in the U.s complaining about Verizon or AT&T or some other company is phenomenal. I have a system i have is called fibre to the cabinet, in that fibre will go to the road side cabinet and the rest is copper to the house, I get a pretty good 45Mb/s, some people get more depending how close they are to the cabinet. Phone calls go the normal way. My problem with our system is the high price of line rental and yet very few people use house phones now.

[@MIW_Renegade]

EasyListeningLounge I only have DSL in my area but they are bringing fibre optic lines to my area soon at the moment I only get 30-50 mbps down and about 20 mbps up (because that’s the fastest Telus has in my area) but soon I’m switching to Shaw so I can get 150-200 mbps down and same up (thats the best for me being a KZbinr having to upload videos)

[@marktubeie07]

Ok, here in Australia we STILL have copper to the home. We're changing over VERY SLOWLY to fiber but in most cases it won't be directly too the home but to a node, then STILL using the copper line into the home. I know, archaic isn't it!

[@meetoo594]

Same here in the U.K. I get fibre to the roadside box and then a mile or so of shitty copper laid down in the 1970`s to my house. The result is even though I pay for fibre the maximum speed is about 12mb/1mb. Adsl is even worse, your lucky to get 1mb/0.2mb. There doesn't seem to be any pattern to coverage either, a little country village a few miles away gets 80mb/60mb for the same price. BT just refuse to give most homeowners fibre to the home unless they pay for the fibre, which is stupidly expensive. Our pathetic govt defines broadband as 2mb, so thats all BT have to provide.

[@sobolanul96]

What would they define as a slow connection? A 150 baud line for a post WWII teleprinter?

[@meetoo594]

@sobolanul96: Heh, their definition of `high speed internet` is 12mb and acceptable broadband as 2mb. I think they want 2mb access for the entire population by 2020 or something. It doesnt help that the places with crap landline internet also tend to be places with no cellphone coverage either. For some reason my cellphone gets 2 bars outside if im lucky but never any data connection, so I can use voice but not internet (again, all they have to provide). In the nearest town I get very nippy 4g with full bars, although sometimes the contention is so bad that data times out. Pathetic really. We would have been a world leader if BT had gone through with the fibre rollout in the mid 80`s as they planned, but as usual the stupid govt of the time didnt want to pay for it and didnt look to the future and how much a full on digital network would benifit the country.

[@rodmunch69]

Australia is a giant country that isn't too populated - it's pretty difficult and expensive to get the whole thing wired up. But no fear, someone from some Eurotrash country the size of a can of soda will be along soon to let you know they got wired up years ago.

[@meetoo594]

@Daniel: I actually had 2 bonded lines for a while, then one of the pairs got so waterlogged that it stopped working. BT flatly refused to replace the roughly half kilometre of knackered phoneline and just disabled it and cancelled my contract instead. Now the other pair is failing due to them not replacing the line in the first place resulting in a blistering 4mb `fibre` connection and horrible crackly voiceline. I dread to think how bad adsl or dial up would perform. Openreach/BT really need to stop pissing about and update our crumbling rural telephone infrastructure. I have seen cables that have fallen off poles and just left dangling in trees for months. As I said, pathetic.

[@Rouxenator]

Excellent video! In the late 90's we lived on a farm and had a phone line no one else used. On my Zoltrix 56k modem I got 52,000bps all the time while my mates in town only got 43kbps or there about.

[@qwertykeyboard5901]

cool

[@martinrascon1350]

Zoltrix broke the barrier speed back then

[@donaloflynn]

That's the first time I've ever heard of the person out in the country having better telecoms performance!

[@davek12]

Call into a place that plays Opus No. 1. This was a good test.

[@GabrielRodriguez1997]

Here in California AT&T Still charges the Touch Tone fee, no wonder everyone is dropping them as their home phone provider as everyone moves to better alternatives, And thanks for making this video, I'm the type of person that loves this kind of stuff, I remember watching the video you did on your DSL network years ago, Can't wait for the next one!

[@The90sGamingGuy]

The call made on the digital FIOS service sounded better to my ears. Very interesting video.I'm always looking for videos like this showcasing old technology before it goes away like in this video.

[@TechGorilla1987]

I'm rocking dual channel DSL on my POTS line. I don't have a phone line per se, but I have dual bonded ADSL. My only other option in this area is a cable company that restricts certain use of their service. My current ADSL company is just happy I still pay monthly for their service.

[@EgoShredder]

That phone ring sounded absolutely glorious at the end! Beautiful!

[@ITTFami]

I had a serious "what the h..?" moment when you said you still had to pay extra for touch tone dialing. Over here in Spain pulse dialing hasn't even been supported by anyone in over a decade, even on good ol' POTS copper lines. Which I guess it's pretty sad from the point of view of using old rotary phones. I've had FTTH installed for over five years now, and while I haven't tested a modem, I have an old Citesa Heraldo from the 60s (a local "enhanced" version of the American WE/ITT phones from the era) in my room and I can say it works wonders for picking up calls. For placing them... Not so much.

[@brunomoyano8727]

Here on argentina we use both tipes of dialing im still using a rotaty phone to this day

[@aspectcarl]

Brings back pleasant memories from my telecommunications days back in the late 80’s, our key telephone systems connecting to strowger exchanges, and later I started working in modem design and then Callcenter hardware and regulatory supporting loop in DID/DDI and loop out with rotary and dtmf ddi digits. And of course my USRobotics standalone dial up modem at home. Happy days:] thanks for the memories

[@benmeyer2916]

The reason I like your channel so much is that I feel your stuck in a time warp with dial up, windows XP and tape recorders lol so cool

[@REXXSEVEN_II]

Jordan U featured the same rotary telephone in a video I watched just the other day. One just like yours, my grandmother used to have one like that in a pinkish color and it had a long receiver cord and an amplified handset with volume control. Still in my opinion one of the most durable phones ever made.

[@1953childstar]

Now FiOS does not have enough power to operate the ringer feature on a dial phone. My old "touch tone" phones do work..

[@REXXSEVEN_II]

@@1953childstar I have Verizon FiOS as well and it most certainly does have enough power here. Which is around an 80 volt ring. I tested it with something that can measure ring voltage. I'm not sure if maybe they provided your area with a different type of equipment. There are some videos on KZbin that say you have to change the wire position inside the phone. I think the videos are called how to make a rotary phone ring on VoIP or something like that. or maybe the video is called what to do if your rotary phone doesn't ring.

[@vista9434]

DSL is still a common technology for the internet for most of the world. In the UK, VDSL is often marketed as Fibre to the Cabinet (or simply as Fibre) while Fibre to the Premises is often marketed as Full Fibre. Thankfully there's been a recent push towards FTTP technologies but at the moment, me and around half of the UK we're still stuck on VDSL (and for some, even ADSL) for the near future.

[@jeepguy95]

We upgraded from standard copper to FiOs Digital Voice back in 2010, and since then, I've never tried using a rotary phone with it. However, my aunt and uncle have xFinity Digital Voice, and an old Western Electric Celebrity rotary dial phone (looks like an old-time British rotary phone) and I've used it to call myself while I'm there and it worked perfectly. Glad to know it would work perfectly with FiOs if I ever chose to use a rotary phone on my line. :)

[@mspenrice]

Interesting. Sounds almost like when you dial up on the FIOS it switches to a high fidelity voice circuit after picking up (treble headroom suddenly jumped up a couple seconds after connecting), but then when it detected you were making a data call it dropped back down again. Like the ISP you were dialling into is also on a fibre phone line, so if you were talking to them you'd get a modern style ultra clear connection, but there's something built into the system that can detect modem (or fax) sounds and saves them some network bandwidth (even if only a few dozen kbits - it all adds up) by returning you to a regular quality, although still uncompressed PCM connection. Maybe if it had kept the same high quality connection you'd see the sort of connection speed that those of us in the UK/Europe enjoyed during the 56k era, IE generally a pretty reliable 54000 to 56000 bps... The slightly clearer sound of the answer service would seem to bear that out. Probably they're not on a fibre line, or they are but only have their messages recorded at 8khz 8-bit, so you only get extra clarity on your end of things... so now you have full 8khz x 8bit, rather than the old analogue / compromised digital PCM standard that would have about the equivalent of 7.5 bits at 7.5khz, and the difference is just enough to be discernable even though it's only very subtle.

[@jaykay18]

Interesting. Here on Long Island, we have to dial a "1" before the area code. Though if dialing in the same area code we can dial just the 7 digit number. I found the call quality on the POTS line to be more pleasing, kind of like that "warm vinyl sound" as compared to compressed digital music. I had dial-up service until approximately 1998. We also had pulse dialing but somewhere in the early 90s we were automatically bumped to tone service WITHOUT an additional charge. Pulse still worked on those copper lines. We kept copper line service until our cable company (now owned by Altice) started VoIP service. In the early days, faxing was a bit of a problem with slow speeds. They've gotten that all worked out now. I've also done tests with a dial-up modem, even calling "cross country" to California for a dial-up connection just for "grits and shins" (as uxwbill would say), and achieved somewhere in the 40k range each time. A friend of mine has FIOS and while it does support rotary phones, we were unable to "switch hook dial" for some reason. That works fine on my Altice line. I've never gotten a firm answer on how much REN the cable modem puts out. I'm able to ring 2 mechanical bell ringers plus a host of electronic ones. If I try a third bell ringer, when a call comes in, the phone ringer will "blip" and the line goes off hook until I pick up a phone and hang it up again. Call sound quality over Altice's VoIP isn't bad, but certainly not as good as copper lines were. Couple that with the fact that most smartphones can do everything but make calls well today and you have what we know as the "normal" sound of a phone line.

[@bighugejake]

It's kinda funny that the POTS line sounds less digital, since it's also a digital signal. It most likely has either a little more bandwidth, or uses a different codec which emphasizes the bass range more. It might not be full "toll quality." Since hardly anyone uses mechanical ringers anymore, it's likely the cable modems only put out about 2 REN. And give smartphone a little credit. They're maintaining a moving invisible wire from your hand to many microwave transceivers hundreds of feet away. Let's hope for HD Voice to catch on.

[@jaykay18]

I'm old enough to remember when the POTS lines were analog, thank you. The line just had a better sound to me, that's all. I'm old school. I'm not jaded that it's a POTS line and skewing my opinion based on that, it really did sound better to me. As for smartphones, yes it's great they have an invisible wire to microwave transceivers. My point is that older phones, you know, the ones that were JUST phones, had better sound quality. Nowadays you can climb a cell tower and it'll still sound terrible. I can always tell the difference between a cell call and a landline call. Some of that may have to do with the design of phones now that are just screen and thus require protective cases to prevent your fingerprints from cracking the screen.

[@vwestlife]

If you got lucky and had a landline that didn't have many repeater coils on it, you could get pretty good frequency response through it. Many radio stations used to use telephone lines to send their audio from the studio to the transmitter -- with the repeater coils removed they could easily get 15 kHz FM-quality audio through them.

[@jaykay18]

Yes, I remember reading about that!

[@arnlol]

Implying ADSL is rare when it really is not. So many people stuck with less than 1mbps upload in 2018 when others are getting up to 1gbps.

[@DrayCrouse]

ME.

[@mnh48]

it's not rare... especially since my hometown still dont have any fiber coverage in march 2020, and even the cell phone tower here still uses copper backend

[@MrSloika]

DSL is rare in North Jersey, where Verizon rolled out FIOS years ago. My mother who lives in North Jersey, about 10 miles from Manhattan, had a copper phone line up until a couple of months ago. Verizon sent her a notice that the copper network was being shut down in the area where she lives because the switch over to fiber is nearly complete. Now she has FIOS like everyone else, even she doesn't know how to use a computer. The parts of the country with low population density will probably never see fiber.

[@StevenSmyth]

Love this video. I think you'll love FiOS if the service is anything like in Southern California. Unfortunately, Verizon sold their FiOS business there to another provider who gives crappy service. I had nothing but a good experience before we moved, so I hope you do too. On the touchtone thing, I remembered that in the early 80s Radio Shack used to carry a line of pocket tone dialers with a keypad and memory. This was for business travelers who needed to have speed dial while on the road. You can find them on ebay in abundance, so if anyone wants to use a rotary phone, but would like to still be able to navigate voice mail jail, you can get one of those. Radio Shack catalog numbers 43-140, 43-139 or 43-138 for the 32 number version with paper index. There was also the whopping 84 number dialer with LED screen, number 43-142. Slick. I'm considering getting one of those OBi200 Google Voice boxes so I can use my GV number for... something. It allows you to hook up to your router and then hook up a standard phone to it and take calls over that. It might be interesting to see if you can use pulse dialing on that. It's supposed to work with T.38 FAX machines (digital FAX) but it says nothing about analog FAX or rotary phones.

[@culturelab9679]

It's still very common in the uk for houses to have a landline. Most people over here use fibre and a landline connection. Fun and interesting video btw!

[@AttilaSVK]

Interesting. I live in a small town of 45000 people in Slovakia, a small and not really interesting country (business-wise... though the nature is gorgeous here) and I've had FTTH service since 2010. First it was 40/4 Mbit/s, then I upgraded to 250/100 after 3 years or so, for about 19€ per month, which I'm using to this day. No TV or phone included, just internet. Also I've never heard of tone dialling being a paid feature and sounds weird to me. By the way, why is there also a coax cable going into the ONT (modem)? Is it the feed for the set-top boxes around the house? (I'm asking because my ONT has no coax out, as the set-top boxes of my provider use a regular Ethernet connection to the ONT)

[@vwestlife]

The coax output of the ONT is MoCA (Multimedia over Coax Alliance), which provides both TV and Internet service. I'll explain it in greater detail in my next video.

[@izaboomaster]

Also might look into Hybrid Fiber Coaxial (HFC) which is a similar deployment. This is common with the ole LECs, as it is cheaper to retrofit (aerial) cables using fiber to the node and coxail from the node to your NID. Either way beats the pants off anything you can get with twisted pair; VDSL/Gfast/Vectored but Moca/Docsis will never be a fiber to an ONT.

[@AttilaSVK]

GPON is essentially DOCSIS over fiber. Not entirely, but it's close.

[@kbhasi]

Why do I feel lucky that I live in a country where pretty much all the homes get FTTP... and the newer homes have the FTTP point placed behind a cabinet placed below the fibre distribution board, while the older homes get them placed next to where the main cable TV/Internet point is located.

[@shymon512]

AttilaSVK aj ty si slovák?

[@MrBarlien]

Really neat video! Got fiber in 2007, 50 Mbps up and down. I remember it like it was yesterday! Welcome to the fold and congratulations!

[@gerry4b]

The most retro aspect of the presentation... is someone actually making a "phone call!"

[@teppest111]

I really enjoy the late 70' early 80's style titles screens between segments, very nostalgic and cool.

[@PaulWoodman83]

Oh how I miss analog. I used to work for BT in the UK and here in Alaska I used cable for internet. I have so many old modems from 14.4Bbps to 56k. I wish we could go back in time and use the internet using dial up..... it was so much simpler :(

[@rja5748]

You can doit not to forget ,

[@lsavtrr]

I can't believe that managed to to survive at that slow speed for so long! When my family moved to house I live in now (In the UK since 2005) my house already had fibre ready in it. When we moved it we used a modem but there was no dial-up and we had a USB cable coming out of the modem and into the computer (so we had no firewall) but in 2009 we got wireless internet which I didn't use much or remember much as I was only 6 years old at the time (yes I'm only 14). In 2012, we got a much improved 100Mbps Download and (I think) 6Mbps Upload which was we first started using fiber. In 2016, we got a free upgrade to 150Mbps Download and 10Mpbs Upload. So pretty much for all my life, I have been on very fast internet speed. In my house it's even possible to get a 350Mbs Download Speed and a 20Mbps Upload speed. Thank you for anyone that actually read though this though. And in the UK I use Virgin Media.

[@rarbiart]

A V92 modem is really neat. I was not aware that they had such equipment in the thinkpads.

[@HPad2]

@VWestlife, Any plans on making an update video on your experience so far with FiOS? My friends have the 1gig/1gig plan and its amazing, it does have its afternoon congestion on the downstream though, but its still plenty fast

[@LightTheUnicorn]

Congratulations on the upgrade! That's a big ol' speed jump! Loved the connection/voice quality tests, the dial-up noises are almost soothing, good stuff.

[@Sb129]

one of these days I will actually use a dial up modem, just to get a feel for it

[@EgoShredder]

I love dialup apart from the speeds of course, but every other aspect I actually enjoy, e.g. seeing and hearing the whole connection experience. I left dialup in April 2002 for my first cable broadband connection. Since 2016 I have been on 200 Mbit cable with 12 Mbit upload I think.

[@RoastBeefSandwich]

seeing and hearing the connection experience? since when does everything have to be an "experience" with people.

[@EgoShredder]

Because absolutely everything in life is an experience. It's the nature of reality as far as we know.

[@RoastBeefSandwich]

using dialup is not an "experience" any more than using a pencil to rewind a cassette is an experience. wtf is up with this generation.

[@EgoShredder]

Haha! I quite like that too, although I admit it can be tedious if a lot of winding is required.

[@zeldajunkielol2]

Verizon Fios is nice but I really miss the analog landlines, especially for the fact that you could make calls even when the power was out, now you have to depend on a flimsy battery backup which won't last during an extended power outage like during Hurricane Sandy. Back in the day when my Family switched, we were basically forced to switch to VOIP which is sad. I don't even know if there are any companies that still offer POTS lines.

[@sbrazenor2]

Garry *formerly zeldajunkielol2* for that I have a cell phone and an Anker Powerhouse. (400Wh of capacity) It can keep my cellphone working for weeks when the power is out.

[@zeldajunkielol2]

Great idea!

[@kaitlyn__L]

A long time ago the POTS backend got upgraded to digital anyway, so not really. The only part that's still analogue in some places is the last mile from the exchange, and even a lot of those are fibre to the cabinet, with a DAC in each cabinet for compatibility with the old phones.

[@zeldajunkielol2]

Oh wow, didn't know that. Thanks for the info!

[@dennisp.2147]

@@sbrazenor2 That doesn't help when the batteries on the cell tower go flat... I lived through the 2004 Hurricane season in Florida, and we had no cell service for weeks. But my avocado green Western Electric 2500 had no trouble dialing out.

[@1AstralKing]

The only problem I ever had with DSL was those lousy Westel modems kept going bad. I ended up buying my own Zoom replacement and it lasted for years.

[@SeaJay_Oceans]

I LOVE your shower-shelf rack mount engineering ! BRILLIANT ! :-)

[@wilkes85]

Oh man I had no idea you had such a slow internet connection! You're gonna love the higher speed. I've had fibre optic for about 7 or 8 years, and I like it. It's cool that Verizon still offers pulse dialing too; SaskTel got rid of pulse several years ago, and they say 1,000 people in the province were still using a rotary phone, although I'm sure the vast majority of those customers were people like you who thinks the idea of charging for touch tone is stupid.

[@AMDXplusplus]

56k Internet in 2018 still available

[@LincolnRon]

In the USA there are still places that only offer dial-up service. The USA also still has a LOT of places that have no cell phone services. There are satellite services you can get for phone calls and satellite services for the internet. (Download by satellite, upload by dial-up.)

[@BilisNegra]

Wonder what can you do with that these days other than painfully sending text-only emails. I said THESE DAYS, read twice before you point out purposely retro stuff like BBS bulletins or very old archived websites.

[@LenHopkins]

I can hear "compression breathing" on the FiOS call.

[@twocvbloke]

Some suppliers over there in the US & Canada have modem-routers that don't support pulse-dialling, despite the number of people still using rotary dial telephones, so you got lucky with the hardware they supplied there... :)

[@commandpost1]

This is a really good idea for a video actually. Can’t wait to see the review on FiOS. I’m mad I can’t get FiOS at my address but Atleast I’m happy to see it will work well for the elderly who still want a landline

[@SuperHaunts]

Thanks for taking the time to do this video!

[@kbhasi]

Wow, I can't believe I saw one of my dreams, come true. 4:28 Cool! Somehow, the pulse dialling feels more nostalgic to me. 12:08 A minimum of 40 year old wiring 😢 Also, I like the way you ended this video 😢 and maybe I'm fantasising too much now Great to see you're using that "New Moon" (Pale Moon fork for Windows XP).

[@DeadKoby]

Audio quality of HD VoIP phones are really impressive. The 722 codec usually shocks new users as to how clear it sounds.... you of course need a VoIP desk phone to try it out.

[@rarbiart]

the question is much about reliability of such SIP/VOiP connections, since the analogue modems are mostly unable to cope (and resync) on connection jitter (aka "time leap forward/backward for a few milliseconds")

[@lenniegodber7805]

Americans and Europeans are blessed when it comes to the Internet and I find it amusing when I read them complaining about their slow speeds. If you want to see what crappy internet looks like then visit Australia sometime

[@simontay4851]

When talking about crappy slow rip off internet, Australia has to be the worlds no1.

[@CommodoreFan64]

Well at least in Australia you guys have a national Broadband roll out happening, here in the US their are still areas where you can't even get a POTS line ran to your house without hassle, or at all like my girlfriend who is just west of me in Georgia living on her family owned cattle/free range chicken farm, and is stuck with very expensive Satellite internet as an option(she use to have it, but it was costing almost $130 USD a month), or now stuck with Cricket wireless(own by AT&T as a prepaid carrier) under my 4 lines for $100 USD a month plan with the 3mbps/3mbps speed but unlimited data/txt/talk with no hotspot on her Android phone, and if she needs to get any more serious work done, she has to drive into town, and find a free WiFi hotspot, and connect her Lenovo Chromebook sitting out in the parking lot a the local Walmart which has connections from Walmart, McDonald's, Starbucks, and AT&T which offers free WiFi for customers of any of their services so she uses our Cricket wireless login.

[@simontay4851]

Depending on how far away she is, she should run her own line to the farm from the nearest urban area with good access.

[@simontay4851]

Probably be easier (and cheaper in the long term ) than trying to get AT&T to install a line to her farm

[@kaitlyn__L]

People have tried to do that, but getting the permit is very difficult, because you need the permission from whoever you're running the extension from. You can't just do it from another domestic line because AT&T will cut you off if they find out about it, etc. Permits permits

[@antendies]

These dail-up transfer rates look amazing. (It's a lossy audio compression after all.) I don't belief they will be stable though. Were I work (a small IT-Support company.), we set the speed to 9600bit/s at all our Fax-Machines/-Solutions we install. It's the most reliable setting and what the manufacturer hotline will recommend you in regards to VoIP.

[@QuantumBraced]

The reason your dial-up results were the same is because Fios gives you the same analog signal as POTS, just over fiber. It's not VoIP as you said. Your ONT demultiplexes the internet from the phone, TV, etc. Fiber can theoretically be better, but honestly it's not hard to carry a 3KHz channel to the exchange. The fact that the dial-up modem connected at the same rate with both connections told you everything you needed to know about the quality of the line. As far the audio test, it sounded the same to me, maybe a bit of a placebo. Phone audio gets digitized to 64 kbps, so that's the max amount of audio data that can be carried, and your dial-up modem picked up the max it could minus DAC overhead with both connections, so that means the audio data all made it to you all the same.

[@overcooler]

To me it sounds like there is a lot of digital artefacting in the voip connection due to the relatively low bitrate compared to the analogue one when the white noise is playing. Probably why the connection was slightly slower.

[@connorm955]

My parent's first internet connected PC has a 2wire DSL filter too around 2004 and 2005. We had SBC global. I can't remember what the Pc was exactly, but i know it was a beige Dell tower. I remember the monitor really well, a Dell Sony Trinitron UltraScan P780.

[@PINKBOY1006]

I can hear the buttons on the 2500 set you were using. they make a very distinctive sound.

[@vwestlife]

2500? It's a cheap JWin phone.

[@PINKBOY1006]

VWestlife looking at some pictures it it’s definitely not the same key pad as a 2500, but on the video it sure sounded like one. On another note, the phone is from 83 and the handset is hardwired? That is a very late 500 set to have a hardwired handset, they started making those modular in the 70’s.

[@vwestlife]

The cords are hard-wired but the housing has cutouts for modular jacks. It was probably assembled from old parts.

[@wclifton968gameplaystutorials]

in the UK my dad recently went to using these phones again because the digital landline phones he had doesn't seem to work for now. he's on BT for some reason which probably explains the issue.

[@Fender178]

Yeah we have DSL currently in our house 25Mbps down and 1.5Mbps up and we are switching to Comcast for a 60Mbps down and 5Mbps up. Man you got a huge upgrade in bandwidth. I bet you can upload videos alot faster now. Never heard of the pulse clicking dialing sound I always had the touch tone dialing sound. Yup I remember the DSL filters we had. Now we had one big DSL filter that was installed outside of our house that did every thing that the individual filters did and got rid of those. Also there are 4G Cell phone tower filters for HD antennas to filter out any interference that those cause.

[@rezganger]

I too,have fiber but I only have a very small box outside and a line in to my router.Ur setup looks very intricate compared to mine.

[@markitzero12]

In the area were my mom lives when Verizon owned the switching station back when I lived with her I was on dial-up back in 2009, the Dialup speeds were under what you were getting at times I would get 28.8K to 33.6K. There was no DSL available before we moved there was then we got settled and all the spaces ran out for Verizon DSL spots and they had no plans to add more DSL Lines.

[@bighugejake]

Verizon calls it "Digital Phone" but I'm willing to bet that it is not "digital" at all, and rather turns into VoIP as soon as it exits your ONT. And it probably stays VoIP unless it hits a point in the PSTN where it would need to be converted to digital, like a dial-up modem, or another ONT with an analog or digital phone connected to it. The DSL is likewise only actually "analog" until it hits the DSLAM and the analog signal is extracted from the line and multiplexed into a digital (or VoIP) trunk back to the Central Office. Almost no part of the *core* public access network is still digital. The interesting thing about quality of the call sound is what codecs are used between the various end points. Since analog was completely replaced (or 99.9%), all of North America used G.711 (at 64kbps) for digital telephony. Until VoIP started taking over the core infrastructure of the telephone network. Now there are tons of codecs used with better compression algorithms and such allowing the "same quality" voice over less bandwidth. So if you call someone on a different provider, or in a different country or region, or using a different access technology (like DOCSIS over CATV) then there's often a need to translate between different codecs, and that causes the sound profile to change (different sampling divisions, decompression algorithms, companding, etc.).

[@MsZiomallo]

bighugejake I don't think so. G.711 is a common denominator and if both callers don't support modern codecs, they have to fall back to G.711. This is what standards are for.

[@russianboss0378]

If you think about people from 50 years ago and how they tinkered with old cars and applied new technologies to them, then this video is the modern equivalent of that. nerdy but cool!

[@imark7777777]

Interesting there's no difference with the DSL filter. I have heard that using one with a VOIP device can't sometimes help with connection speeds and I once saw the result for myself with a analog port on a phone system going to its alternative port.

[@honkhonkler7732]

Love the sound of the dialup handshake. I couldn't do better than 14-28k on our shitty Southwestern Bell phone lines.

[@KylesDigitalLab]

You are extremely lucky to get FiOS. I have Comcast and it's hella expensive without caps.

[@PedalingPrince]

I can hear a distinct improvement in the high frequency response on the FiOS line...

[@DrFruikenstein]

One of my requirements for a landline is that it will support my 1970 Western Electric rotary dial phone. Of the two choices in my area, Frontier still does. Frontier DSL also covers my needs as I don't upload very often, and when I do, it's usually direct dial through a V-92 modern to another computer, and not through an ISP (anyone else still direct dial another computer?). Comcast (Con-cast) must have a special box to convert their system for pulse dial, which they have traditionally forced the customer to buy. As I don't trust Comcast for anything, you can guess which direction I went. I used to work on alarm systems, and have once caught a Comcast maintenance worker in a box cutting wires to a house that we were servicing, and our customer had no plans to switch services.

[@AustinHollingerOfficial]

why would someone cut wires?

[@vinylspell7179]

In Romania we have optical fibre (100 Mb/s) since 2005 .

[@I430VX]

I see you're using the New Moon web browser fork for XP. Good to see it getting some love by people other than just me.

[@MasterControl90original]

Oh don't worry Italy got ya with as much copper line and adsl v1 you want... ***Cries in Italian***

[@jackilynpyzocha662]

My maternal grandparents had a yellow phone in the kitchen, yellow appliances, tea-cup designed wallpaper·my aunt Eileen had the same print!

[@Ivo--]

They make you pay extra for touch tone dialing but still support pulse dialing? That's so strange.

[@junker15]

Not if you look at the history behind it. Back in 1963 or so, when DTMF was being rolled out, there weren't any digital switches yet. Western Electric wouldn't ship their first electronic switch (the 1ESS, the analog equivalent to the 5ESS digital switch, which shipped in 1982) until 1965. So it was primarily crossbar or maybe even panel, all set up for pulse. When DTMF came, Bell upgraded their dial tone plant to the precise tone (the minimum required; many 5XB offices had only precise dial tone but modulated everything-else up until the end of the 1980s) and put digit receivers on the lines of those who subscribed to Touch-Tone(tm) service. This was why they charged for tone in the first place. When panel and crossbar equipment was upgraded to electronic (1ESS and 5ESS for end offices), the tone plant was entirely precise tones, and enabling tone was a simple matter of flipping a class-of-service bit for the subscriber's line. The digit receivers were built in, yet some telcos kept charging. Many stopped charging and all new orders included tone (and pulse, of course). The new equipment supported pulse because it was just a matter of writing software to make the equipment work in pulse. Verizon (in former Bell Atlantic territory) is probably a reason why ALU/Nokia keep maintaining the parts of the ESS code that looks for pulse from a customer. If anything, VZ should charge for pulse and make tone free if it's actually costing them anything.

[@Ivo--]

Thank you for the information. Sure, in the 1960's and 70's it would make sense when systems needed to be upgraded, but in 2018 all systems are digital so in my mind it's ludicrous that they're still charging for that. And like you say it should be the other way around, because nobody, except a few hobbyists, uses pulse dialing anymore.

[@b1squitz551]

What's the difference between DSL and ADSL? Here in Italy we have ADSL never heard of the other

[@vwestlife]

The A stands for Asynchronous. In the USA, most DSL is actually ADSL.

[@b1squitz551]

VWestlife what does the word asynchronous changes to the type of internet connection?

[@vwestlife]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asymmetric_digital_subscriber_line

[@Jpk516]

Still got a landline. The one thing that doesn't ever go down. I hope I never get VoIP.

[@stphinkle]

I have heard that some of the companies that made the copper landline switching equipment are out of business. This meant that the phone companies were scouring Ebay for parts. No wonder they want to switch everyone over. Fiber also has more bandwidth and more capabilities as well.

[@HappyDiscoDeath]

I dialed the 1-800 number shown at 9:38 in Pulse dialing mode on my RCA 25201RE1-A for shits 'n giggles, and got what I think is a busy signal. It's attached to my Google Voice/Obi200 router, which apparently doesn't support pulse dialing.

[@Complextro93kg]

nice to hear you are getting proper internet speed, now more uploads :D

[@traxonwax]

Welcome to direct to the home fibre. I’ve been subbed to FTTH provides by Bell Aliant with a 350Mbt/s down and 100Mct/s up. I could get Gigabit internet but I don’t see a need for far yet. I think we are doing pretty good for being stuck up in the North Atlantic Ocean. Been on that service for 6 years as of April 18th m, 2018 and let me tell you, it will feel as if you went from dial up to high speed all over again. Happy surfing!

[@1953childstar]

Since this video was made, the voltage output from FiOS is not strong enough for a rotary phone to ring. Only my old "Touch Tone" phones will ring...

[@sbrazenor2]

I have FiOS and I have faxed on a VoIP box attached to it. It works perfectly fine. My VoIP carrier requires that I dial *99 before the number, so you'll want to look at the carrier details before faxing.

[@mspysu79]

Interesting that VeriZon still charges for touch tone service. AT&T, in Ohio at least includes Touch Tone with the standard unlimited residential service. The 5ESS that serves us of course can accept either Touch Tone or Pulse dialing and has no problem ringing several mechanical ringer phones (WE 500 and WE 2500). I recently got rid of our ADSL based U-Verse service in favor of Comcast business internet but still have the AT&T copper landline.

[@beerrox711]

mspysu79 yes thats odd to me too im in CA and ive never heard of anyone still charging for touch tone. I thought they wanted people to dump pulse. Though i have AT&T too, so maybe its a company with a nickel and dime scam? (Like charging the elderly for old phone leases)

[@graboid116]

That phone is as old as I am lol

[@waltschannel7465]

When I hear a rotary phone ring, I can't help but hear "Hello, this is Jim Rockford..." 😆

[@rdxdt]

I use fiber for internet however my phone is still the good old analog, the reason that i opted this way is the case of electric power outage, the old phone line will work.

[@Saturn2888]

Can't you use an ATA to get modems working on an Ethernet connection at home?

[@windytan]

I hope this tech never dies :)

[@markm0000]

Oh it wont. It's still an integral part of the US government faxing documents back and forth between offices. We've upgraded now to digital fax machines that couple to email inboxes. The service must be available, ATT and Verizon is forced to keep it working.

[@Dr.Drax.]

I started with a bausch 2400 baud modem isa... and now cable modem 400mbit down 40 up. Time and internet speed goes fast. :)

[@uncle-comrade]

I absolutely love your videos! We are definitely interested in the same things.

[@NJRoadfan]

Still waiting for the part 2 video. :P Anyway, things are moving on up in this area. Verizon announced that my local central office is having its copper lines retired and fiber/FiOS will be its replacement. No clue how long that is going to take, but getting FiOS again will be nice. Seems that Verizon has finally seen the light (pun intended) and is now aggressively killing off their copper lines in areas served by central offices that are FiOS enabled. While my area doesn't have fiber on the poles, Verizon upgraded the CO a few years back to serve a massive new apartment complex in the central office's service area. They have a policy that all new network extensions are to be fiber, no new copper facilities in new construction.

[@kareno8634]

I Never thought it possible - to hear dial up again after using it 13 years, I did smile. There Should be a Dial Option Included in the Menu. Some just Like Older phones, so That's Prejudice. !!

[@WaybackTECH]

Installer did a pretty nice job there it looks like from the video. I've seen installations far far worse than this so that's why I am mentioning that. Verizon seems to suck no matter what or where they are, just seems to differ as to how much they suck at any given place and time. I tried AOL dial-up over Magic Jack a couple years ago and that really didn't work very well.

[@vwestlife]

I did have some concerns about the installation, which I'll discuss in the next video.

[@martinrascon1350]

U still need to connect magic jack to the 56k modem to get 1200k connections

[@RTDragonCommando]

Pulse dial hasn't been available for new lines in my area for the last ten years, you had to have it already to keep it when they started phasing it out.

[@geotechmore8855]

Rotery phone that my grandma had! I still remember it! Those phones were well made and heavy! The headset is very durable 😁. You could drop it many many times and still works! 😁.

[@richardyao9012]

Your analogue landline was digitalized at the exchange. Now it is being digitized at your house. Either way, it is digitized. The 56k modem would not work otherwise since it relies on the trunk lines being digitized.

[@KrissBartlett]

Fiber is great we have had it nearly a year but at night things go slow we have fiber to

[@coolelectronics1759]

that is a very nice telephone! I will be picking up a 2500 with pushbuttons for my bedroom this weekend on freecycle! Will be using it with this voip gadget called the obihai200 module. Anything I should consider when I get it home? Capacitors wiring cleaning tips etc to inspect before I use it? It is 2500(MG) from what I was told. Any idea on when it could of been made? It comes in ivory at least mine is but the same one in different colors looks to be also floting out there in lemon, red, sky blue and black.

[@capitolemiproducer]

For special features try dialing just the two digits and wait for 5 second time out. It should work.

[@u1f98a]

I live in the UK and I have 250/30 Fiber internet and we still use the old copper for the phone.

[@VickyGeagan]

Thank-you for the video VWestlife I found it very helpful and it answered a couple of questions I had about fios Just upgraded my landline to fios for my fax machine also have a broadband line to besides fiber optics the only problem with fiber optic line is when the power goes out the backup battery for the installed switching box goes dead very quickly and it stops working that is what I found at least with mine

[@vwestlife]

The battery backup they gave me takes standard alkaline D cells and has an on/off switch so you can turn it on only when you need it and leave it off otherwise.

[@VickyGeagan]

That sounds nice mine does not have the on off switch I think it is an older model thank-you again I will look into it I may also try hooking up a dial up modem to it